“The Living Shadow” (part 11)

Shadow of the Living Hedgehog. More chapters! Let's get daaaaangerous!

24. A Visit to Bingham's​

This chapter begins with a little bit of a timeskip. After reporting his scant findings from the cab fiasco to Fellows, Harry has been sent back to Holmwood Arms with instructions to monitor both the Laidlaws and Ezekiel Bingham. Promising start! Harry's previous Holmwood Arms stay was the high point of the story so far, and hopefully this next chunk will be able to match it at least for a while.

Since returning to Holmwood, Harry has overheard some informative gossip about the situation. The grieving family of Geoffrey Laidlaw have left the state again just within the last couple of days, and seem to have taken most of the house's contents with them. Bingham has also left town, alone in his car. This might actually be coincidence though, because apparently he does this every few months, vanishing for a couple weeks at a time and avoiding having to explain where and why. Both the Laidlaw and Bingham houses are being guarded, however. The Laidlaws left some rent-a-cops to watch the mansion, and Bingham left his boy toy Jenks behind as he usually does.

Also, Jenks has a girlfriend. Or at least, a female friend who the rumor mill suspects is his girlfriend. He apparently has been keeping Bingham from knowing about her. Presumably either because Bingham isn't someone you want to know too much about your loved ones, or because Bingham is actually delusional enough to think that Jenks actually likes his wrinkly old dick instead of just the money that comes with it. Anyway, she's a local girl who works at the drugstore, and Jenks leaves Bingham's house in the evenings sometimes to go see her. Now that Bingham is away, Jenks is likely to do this much more often, even if he's been given orders to guard the house.

After driving back to report this to Fellows, and Fellows sending and receiving a couple of stenographs about it, Harry is given his new orders, along with a small, sealed box. Return to Holmwood Arms, wait for a letter, do not read it or open the box until exactly seven thirty PM that evening.

Cut to seven thirty PM. Or rather...catch up to the present, because everything up until now was written in retrospect for some reason, even though it wasn't really shortened compared to usual. Anyway, Harry opens the letter, and deciphers the instructions.

““Watch Bingham’s house immediately.

”When Jenks has gone, try the door.

”If it opens, enter and go to upstairs study.

”Turn on the radio; tune in on Station WNX.

”Open your package and lay its contents on table.

”Listen for Modern Dentrifice program.

”Write down important words given by announcer.

”Follow instructions; then leave.

”Drive in to Metrolite Hotel; register there and wait.

”Important: If Jenks does not appear, or if door does not open, give it up for to−night.””

He rereads all this a few times to get it all straight, and then it disappears.

-_-

Long-ass message. Written in cipher, so decoding it would have taken him a little while. The disappearing ink has always been described as taking effect just a minute after the letters are opened. I really don't see this working.

Whatever, Shadow magic lets him set a fucking timer for his disappearing ink or something, who cares.

So, Harry sets out, and comes within sight of the Bingham and Laidlaw houses by quarter to eight. He sees someone, presumably Jenks, leaving as he arrives. And, upon trying Bingham's door, he finds that Jenks failed at his one job and left the damned thing unlocked. I guess looks aren't everything. Harry makes his way to Bingham's home office, notes the steel door leading to some kind of walk-in safe or panic room, and then turns on the radio perched on Bingham's desk. He finds the instructed station, and then opens the box to find a pen and notepad, a strange-looking key, and a sealed black bottle. I wonder if that's got the magical disappearing psychic ink in it? Maybe. Anyway, the program he's supposed to listen to comes on.

“The announcer was speaking. Harry detected a strange voice. He had listened frequently to this program, but had never heard this particular announcer before.

The voice spoke slowly. In the first sentence, Harry caught an emphasis that brought a gasp of astonishment to his lips.

The man at Station WNX was stressing certain words, exactly as Harry had heard words stressed over the telephone.”

"WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?"

...hey fuck you you know you'd have made that joke in my place.

The host of the Shadowcast uses enunciated syllables to get instructions to Harry, telling him to open Bingham's safe and providing the combination. Ah, that key is probably the copy that the Shadow made when he snuck in here before, which is also when he probably learned the combination by watching Bingham key it in. So, Harry opens the safe and finds the sealed envelope inside. Following his instructions, he applies some liquid from the bottle to the front of the envelope, which makes the paper translucent enough for Harry to read and copy the text of the letter inside. How many types of paper-related magic liquids does the Shadow have? At least two. Possibly more. As expected, the paper is covered in blocks of numbers; the code that Bingham is having Joyce try to break. Harry copies it onto his notepad, and then puts the envelope back in the safe and locks it again. Unsurprisingly, the paper is becoming opaque again as it dries, leaving no trace of the tampering.

The text now spends several paragraphs on Harry marveling at how the Shadow could have arranged that radio broadcast. Personally, I think a much better question is WHY he went through that much trouble when he could have just given Harry these instructions along with the box back at the hotel to begin with. Or just at some point since then, if he didn't want to put too many eggs in one basket. I think this is supposed to make the Shadow's reach seem incalculable, but all it's doing is painting him as a pathological overthinker.

Harry leaves, and drives back toward NYC to check in at the Metrolite and turn the recovered data over to Shadow Ltd. So much for getting to enjoy another Holmwood Arms section, but ah well. On the way, he stops at a gas station. Also at that gas station is a lunch wagon. Uh oh! Harry goes to break a twenty dollar bill at the wagon before he gets gas, and comes face to face with Johnny English and some of his employees.


I...don't really have much of anything to say about this chapter. Let's see how this chance rematch between Harry Vincent and Johnny English goes, I guess. Hopefully Johnny will continue being marginally better written than most of the rest of this story.

25. A Friend In Need

Harry tries to slip back out of the food van before Johnny can recognize him, but in his attempts at hiding his face he literally knocks right into him. I feel like Harry's competence takes a nosedive whenever he and Johnny are both onscreen lol. He tries to deny that he's the sketchy cabbie from yesterday (wait...yesterday? I thought we'd timeskipped ahead much further than that. I guess not), but Johnny isn't fooled, and announces that he's going to kick his ass for trying to rob him. The other men in the wagon are very, very much on Johnny's side.

Hmm. If I were in Harry's place, I think I'd just role over and take it. Hope that my not fighting back would make Johnny go easier on me, if only so as to not look bad in front of his friends.

That's not what Harry does, though. Instead, he tells Johnny that if he fucks with him there will be hell to pay courtesy of his own associates. Which is...well, maybe not THE worst thing Harry could have said, but it's pretty damned close to it. Best case scenario, Johnny dismisses this as hot air. Worst case, he believes him, thus removing any last shred of doubt that Harry is connected to a rival organization. For now, it just makes Johnny feel even more like this guy deserves whatever's about to happen to him.

Harry is physically smaller than Johnny, but he nonetheless manages to block the first punch and would have landed one of his own had one of Johnny's sidekicks not intervened in grabbed his arm. Oh well. Johnny's next attack sends Harry stumbling back into the wall of the lunch wagon and slumping to the floor. As he (unwisely) gets back up, Johnny stands over Harry and readies another punch, but another of the wagon crew jumps in front and blocks it for Harry. Telling Johnny that he should just let this poor dumbass go, there's really no point in this.

Another Shadow agent inserted into Johnny's crew? Either that, or the Shadow himself. Hopefully the former, it would make a lot more sense.

Johnny doesn't recognize the interloper, which makes him visibly suspicious. He asks the others who the hell this guy is, and apparently he's just some rando off the street who's being given a practical job interview tonight. Johnny's eyes narrow at this, and he tells the others to keep that guy restrained and to not let him leave the vehicle.

Yeah, Johnny's figured it out. He just doesn't want his employees to know more than he can help.

...then again, the fact that the text isn't explicitly saying this (in six times as many words as it needs to) makes me wonder if I'm giving Johnny too much credit here. This book is pretty scrupulous in not letting any subtlety or indirect storytelling go unruined, so unless it missed a spot here maybe Johnny's just being arbitrarily petty and thuggish.

Harry notices that the interloper looks to be wearing greasepaint to give his skin a swarthier tone than its real one. Then, he lashes out and just knocks Johnny English to the ground before the others can grab him, tells Harry to go get the car and bring it over here, and starts fighting the entire group almost on his own.

Yeah, it's the Shadow. What are the chances he'd have infiltrated Johnny's group in person at this exact, specific time? Not great, I feel. Also, this exact thing has already happened once, so the reader is being conditioned to expect him to jump out of the closet and pull Harry's sorry ass out of the fire whenever Harry's in trouble, so there goes the story's tension and most of Harry's already limited protagonism.

Dumb, mostly offscreen, fight happens. Harry brings the car over, and the Shadow jumps into it before Johnny English and his droogs can regroup and chase after them. Maybe during the car ride Harry and the Shadow will have a conversation that advances their working relationship or creates a plot twist, at least? I hope so. The other possibility is that the Shadow just vanishes on him again two minutes down the road without saying anything. I don't want to be unfair to the story, but I feel like option b is more likely.

End chapter. End post.


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